Day leads Barclays; Woods struggles

Golf Betting Lines

08/27/2010 - Paramus, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Australia's Jason Day posted his second consecutive four-under 67 on Friday to take the second-round lead at The Barclays.

Day, who earned his first PGA Tour win earlier this season at the Byron Nelson Championship, finished two rounds at eight-under 134 and is one clear at Ridgewood Country Club.

One day removed from his best round of the year, Tiger Woods struggled to a two-over 73 Friday and fell four shots off the lead.

Woods, the first-round leader after six-under 65 on Thursday, played poorly on his back nine, the front side at Ridgewood, and fell to four-under 138.

Woods needs a good week this week to continue his PGA Tour season. He's ranked 112th in FedEx Cup points and after this championship, the first playoff event, only the top 100 in the standings make the field next week at the Deutsche Bank Championship.

It seemed that maybe Woods' woes were behind him after his 65 on Thursday, which was his first competitive round since his divorce from Elin Nordegren was made public on Monday.

"I didn't putt well at all," acknowledged Woods. "I didn't have the speed at all on the greens. I was leaving it way short or blowing it by the hole. Couldn't figure out the speed."

Woods needed 33 putts on Friday, which is up six from Thursday. He still leads the field in driving accuracy, which is somewhat of a shock considering he's ranked 180th on the PGA Tour this year in driving accuracy.

Woods claimed the lead on Friday with birdies at 11 and 18. He was eight-under par, but as soon as he made the turn, Woods began to show signs of trouble.

He made an eight-foot par save at No. 1, but missed the green right at the par-three second and couldn't save par from 25 feet.

The par-four fifth might have been the most puzzling bogey of the round for Woods. At around 275 yards, Woods elected to lay up off the tee with an iron, then hit his second 12 feet short of the stick. Woods missed the birdie putt, then walked up to tap in his two-foot par save, but missed that putt as well. He finally kicked in his bogey putt to fall to minus-six.

"That's just the way it is," Woods said. "Put it behind me. Striped the next one and hit a loose iron shot and ended up making bogeys, back-to-back bogeys."

Woods bogeyed six and nine and will have work to do if he's going to win this week.

Despite Woods' problems on Friday, he's still better off than the world No. 2.

Phil Mickelson, who is fourth in FedEx Cup points, shot a three-over 74 and missed the cut at four-over 146.

Vaughn Taylor, who shared the first-round lead with Woods, posted a one-under 70 and is tied for second place with Kevin Streelman, who fired a 63 on Friday. The pair is knotted at minus-seven.

Stewart Cink (69), Martin Laird (67) and John Senden (69) share fourth place at six-under 137.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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